Corruption is the killer disease: The case of Jieng community in East Africa

The recent impeachment of the Chairperson of Jieng Community, Mr. Kuol Gai Thiep, has increased my fears and worries.

Thus, the purpose of this article is to take the bull by its horn by pointing corrupt practices in Jieng Community whether in East Africa or in South Sudan as a way of fighting corruption.

Corruption is like HIV/AIDs or Ebola. Once it has caught the society, it is hard to get rid of.

Jieng Community in East Africa has been bogged down in extreme corruption since its inception. It was formed in 2014 and the main objectives for its formation were to represent Jieng Community in East Africa, to unite Jieng People in East Africa and to work for the welfare of Jieng members in East Africa as well.

However, the above-mentioned objectives have been lost by vision-less and corrupt leaders like Mr. Kuol Gai Thiep who took office in 2015.

Kuol took office and promised to work for the interest of Jieng Community in East Africa; little did Jieng Members know that he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Jieng members did not know that his vision and mission was to get resources for sustaining or maintaining his many wives. In fact, he has eight wives in total.

Kuol Gai misappropriated five hundred thousand South Sudan pounds (SSP 500,000 equivalent to 150,000 US Dollars rate of 316 pounds of South Sudan at Central Bank of South Sudan) that was intended for the welfare of the community. The source of the money in question was his brother, Makier Gai, a tycoon in South Sudan. Makier gave the money to Jieng Community as aid or financial assistance.

But due to his fallacy and defective reasoning, Kuol claimed that since the money came from his brother, he, therefore, had natural right to use it for his private purpose.

Kuol did not contemplate the effect the misappropriation of this money would have on him, his family and his future in general. Kuol, as I and others live, he will never be a leader in South Sudan except within his own community.

Jesus said that one is known by the fruits he or she bears. So Kuol is known by the fruits he bears and he will never be elected as national leader in South Sudan.

The other person I have selected to comment on his character is Makuei Aguer who will also never be a national leader in South Sudan. I will talk about him in this article later.

However coming back to Kuol, he was a very good person when he was campaigning to become a leader of Jieng Community.

Nevertheless, as soon as he was elected, he began to disclose his true colours. He could no longer associate even with his closest friends; he started refusing to pick phone calls; he started giving empty promises to students who applied to him for support after being expelled from school due to the failure to pay school fees.

In order to make his brother, the one who donated money, believed that the money was being used appropriately as he intended it, he employed a strategy of encouraging students to apply to his office.

As soon as he received the applications from students, he would then dodge back to Juba from Kampala and presented them to his brother to show that he helped Jieng Students in East Africa, which was not true.

However, the truth was that he misappropriated the whole money in sustaining his huge family and also bought a personal car. The type of the car he bought was V6. He now packed it in his compound while students have lost their future as they had dropped out, which is a lost to the nation of South Sudan.

It is the lost to the nation because uneducated population represents uneducated nation which is the basis of ignorance, diseases and illiteracy. These are the diseases which South Sudan and Jieng Community in particular is grappling with.

Due to his unbefitting behaviour as a leader of great community like Jieng, Jieng members in East Africa decided to call him so that he would give accountability how the money was used.

He was given a notice to attend the general meeting where he was expected to account to the Jieng members. Nonetheless, he failed to turn up for the meeting.

The reason for his failure was that he was not around in Kampala but he was in Juba. However, as meeting was in progress, he was found to be around. This highest degree of dishonesty and uncouthness annoyed the members of Jieng Community, who then immediately proposed a motion for the vote of no confidence which was endorsed unanimously.

As a result, he was removed from the office and interim leader was installed.

Therefore, this article is the reflection over corrupt practices not only by leaders of Jieng Community in East Africa but also Jieng Community members who have been in leadership in different students’ associations, especially in South Sudanese students Union in Uganda.

However, this article is only commenting on two members of Jieng Community who were extreme corrupt in leadership. These are: Makuei Aguer who was the president of South Sudanese Students Union in Uganda for the year 2014/2015 and Mr. Kuol Gai as already discussed.

The abovementioned two persons have some things in common. First of all, they are corrupt morally and politically. They do not have a vision and a mission in their life and secondly by coincident, they both came from former Warrap State.

However, my comment should not be taken out of context. My comment is only confined to these two persons who were also former leaders whom I intended to use as examples so that I campaign against corruption in Jieng Community.

As I have already pointed out above, the two persons are corrupt, and thus, are liability to South Sudan. They are psychologically, philosophically, morally, spiritually impure and politically corrupt.

The view in the paragraph above is held in philosophy. In Philosophy, theology or in moral discussions, corruption is spiritual or moral impurity or deviation from an ideal (see; Corruption in Ghanaian healthcare system: the consequences By Pius Agbenorku assess it online). In economy, corruption is payment for services or material which the recipient is not due, under law.

As we have been witnessing in South Sudan and other countries affected by corruption, corruption affects both developing and developed countries and all sectors of development negatively, which has made corruption to be of global concern(Pius Agbenorku).

According to Pius Agbenorku, corruption causes resources either to be over or under utilized in sectors where it exists.

Also, most people, especially the poor, are exploited. This is because corruption includes smuggling, illegal payments, money laundering, drug trafficking, falsification of documents and records, false declaration, underpayment, deceit, forgery, evasion, concealment, aiding and abetting of any kind to the detriment of another person, community, society or nation.

In other words, corruption involves bribery, extortion and other acts of misconduct, including fraud and embezzlement.

In the context of Jieng Community in East Africa, it appears that there are a lot of problems in regard to its members who have already been in power in South Sudanese Students Union in Uganda and in Jieng Community in East Africa.

However, the comment of this article is restricted to Makuei Aguer who ran South Sudanese Students Union in 2014/2015 and Kuol Gai Thiep, the former Chairperson of Jieng Community in 2015/2016.

The way these two persons came to power and the way they had used the resources have shown that majority of Jieng Community members are potentially corrupt.

Therefore, there is a need to begin a war against corruption of all kinds in Jieng Community as a whole in order to save South Sudan and Jieng Community in particular.

In this respect, I wanted to briefly explain why I decided to use the above two persons as indicators of the existence of corruption in Jieng Community (my community).

As I have already stated above, the two persons have something in common. In addition to those things that make them similar as I stated above, they are also birds of the same feather and dishonest.

For instance, the reason for the two of them campaigning to become leaders was not to serve the people but to satisfy their primordial and parochial interests at the expenses of their subjects.

For example, for one to join South Sudanese students Union in Uganda politics, he or she must be a student duly registered in one of the colleges or universities in Uganda.

However, despite of knowledge of the existence of this condition, Makuei Aguer forged documents claiming that he was a master student at Uganda Christian University (UCU), Kampala Branch.

On that forged document or admission and fake student’s identity card, he bribed his way through the South Sudanese students ‘Union in Uganda leadership.

After having been elected and became the president of the Union, and as usual for all elected union presidents of the Union, he went to Juba where he was given about forty thousands ($40,000) USA Dollars from the office of the President of the Republic of South Sudan.

The main purpose for giving the money from the office of the President was on understanding that this money would be used to help needy students. Guest what happened to the money!

Makuei with his executives without shame misappropriated the money with impunity. This was one of the extreme dishonest incidents that Makuei showed. Again, after having served his fraudulent term of office of 2014/2015 he handed over leadership to the Current Union President Mr. Akol Akol, who also came to power in violation of the law.

As if it was not enough, Makuei then came out openly to show that he had never been a student as he purported and left for Juba. He is now currently working in the government of one f the newly created 28 states.

I am sure the government of the state who employed Makuei does not care about the moral turpitude of its employees. If it cared, it would have never employed a deceitful person like Makuei Aguer. This is because as the Bible says, if one is not trusted in small things, how he or she can be trusted in big ones.

Like Makuei Aguer, Kuol Gai was another person was cheated and dishonestly stole money from Jieng Community as already discussed above.

From the above two examples, I have come to the conclusion that corruption is potentially in Jieng community, and if Jieng members do not take serious steps to minimize it, then, corruption will destroy not only Jieng Community but the whole of South Sudan.

In fact, based on the experiences I have had with Jieng students who have been in students politics, it is correct to conclude that corruption is a killer disease in Jieng Community in East Africa.

Therefore, I call upon all members of Jieng Community who are not yet corrupt or who are not elected to become leaders to join me in fighting against corruption in Jieng Community.

I have declared the war on corruption in Jieng Community and in South Sudan in general.

I call upon all Jieng members and South Sudanese in general to punish the two people as I have already mentioned above. They should be punished through isolation and moral exclusion from all the community activities. They are not worthy to hold any position in the community. They can never be entrusted with the affairs of the community as they are dangerous to the welfare of the community.

They are grossly corrupt and morally dead. If they could not be trusted in small things, how can they be trusted in big ones in future?

NB//: the writer is a Bar Course Student at Law development Centre in Kampala (Uganda) and can be reached via juoldaniel@yahoo.com; or +256783579256

15 Comments

Mr daniel,
What ever your motive is,you are suggesting yourself to be a doubious fellow.
Did u say 150 OOO$,is it fiction or a reality?If it’s a reality,are the members of the jieng community in East Africa too stupid to take notice of such big elephant meat getting stollen a bit early than too late?
What should the workers like us think about such unimaginable sum and we have worked and still toiling day and night without ever dreaming of making it in our life time?
But to be honest with u sir,the RSS’ government that gives such amount of money as u say to finance students’ studies in East Africa is as wrong in it’s calculations as the two leaders whom u discribe to have helped them selves to the same money.Time will prove that the best thing to do is building schools in RSS with that money instead of throwing it away and paying teachers to teach what is taught in East Africa inside the RSS’ territories.

False Millionaire,
I wholeheartedly agree with you that the stupidity and irresponsibility lies primarily with the government in Juba and the jieeng as a whole. It’s not the first time that such colossal amounts of money have been misused by the jieeng controlled regime in Juba.
Further, as you rightly suggested, that money could have been better used to build schools and colleges in those jieeng states and more children would have been immeasurably educated instead of those few fake students…. incidentally, that leader who stole the money is reportedly himself a fake student!
Of course, this is South Sudan, where billion-dollar thieves and their mutant student thieves are not prosecuted or arrested even.
Perhaps more seriously, and I am not here joking…. let’s pray and ask God to immediately save the jieeng nation from its own self-destruction.
Editor

False Millionaire, I like your name. The office of the president did not give any money to Jieng Community in East Africa but it is from Someone called Makier Gai. We all know he is rich. However, you should learn how to deal with issues separately. If you want to implicate him on the ground that that money might have been stolen from the office of the president then that is a different police case. At this point, what I know is that Makier Gai gave that Money to Jieng Community in East Africa but it was stolen by Kuol Gai and that is all. Nonetheless, you are free to think the way you think but what I want is for you to delimit the issues in order to find the solution. Otherwise, if you jumble up things you will create more problems than solution which will not help you at all. Be objective all the times if you need to get a solution since being bias will never help you.

As mentioned above, the office of the president of south Sudan gave the jiang community leader in Uganda 40.000 Us dollars.do this office of the president give others south Sudanese communities in Uganda the same amount of money,If not, the president may be representing the head of the jiangs not the country. It’s appear that south Sudan will never prosper under the Dinkas leadership; and one day they the Dinkas will fight themselves or against theirs leaders for using the name of jiang to benefits theirs families on account of the poor venerable jiang.

Taban lowani, I can see where the problem of South Sudan is. You have not understood the article itself. The source of the money is clearly stated in this article but your interest is to see that the office of the president is blamed though on baseless ground. Can you please go back read the article and then make appropriate comment.

Accusation in your case,it is not well explained.You generalizing the whole community ofJieng Community in East Africa for being corrupted community.The person who misuses the money,he is student by himself! You have directed your allegation of corruption on person the doer. But not all people are being found on corruption.

In your article,you wrote,the way I could understand is that you gossip on a person blaminig on wrong doing. Money donate in the name of community by individual people,they should not have been put with student affairs.They are belong for community people.Community do have their representatives.They are the very one to take in charge for donations by themselves alone.

Student money. The president Kirr, has not right to give student money in one student directly.Money should given to minister of eduaction.Then the ministry will send them in South Sudan embassy.The ambassadors he or she,will inform student leaders.The students leaders, will inform students body in general meeting before they get paid! President office is a casemaker on corruption!

Accusation in your case,it is not well explained.You generalizing the whole community ofJieng Community in East Africa for being corrupted community.The person who misuses the money,he is student by himself! You have directed your allegation of corruption on person the doer. But not all people are being found on corruption.

In your article,you wrote,the way I could understand is that you gossip on a person blaming on wrong doing. Money donate in the name of community by individual people,they should not have been put with student affairs.They are belong for community people.Community do have their representatives.They are the very one to take in charge for donations by themselves alone.

Student money. The president Kirr, has not right to give student money in one student directly.Money should given to minister of eduaction.Then the ministry will send them in South Sudan embassy.The ambassadors he or she,will inform student leaders.The students leaders,will inform students body in general meeting before they get paid! President office is a casemaker on corruption!

Chief. I presumed the way u are responding is in two ways either you are related to Kuol or Makuei or u have not understood the article. The money is not students money but Jieng Community which is supposed to help Jieng students who are part of Jieng Community in East Africa. That is the simplest interpretation unless u are interpreting the community less students

your crusade should be directed at salva kiir the man at the top who could not explain how 4 billion dollars disappeared from state coffers earlier on. remember his attempt to recover the monies when he was pressured? salva kiir wrote letters to 75 thieves in his government to kindly return the loot anonimously to a government account in kenya and nobody would be persecuted. quit beating around the bush, point your finger at kiir and the bunch of morons that advise him on a daily basis.

Haaa; very interesting command Mr/ Mrs abai okwahu, sorry I am not sure whether you are a male or female because the name is neutral. Your comment suggests that we leave thieves until the big thieves are caught. Is it what you are trying to insinuate? You have reasoned wrongly and it cannot help South Sudan. Whereas it is clear that 4 billion dollars was stolen but we cannot leave the thief we know until we catch a big thief. Where do you get this kind of reasoning. Let me tell you, We must fight the war with whoever has come out clearly with the agenda of theft and stealing and we cannot attack wrong people. The money in question was not stolen by Kiir or his government but by another entirely different thief which we must deal with accordingly.

I understand well your responding comment. I have done my own examination in your written article. I came up with my own examination that you tattling on Mr.Makier Gai a tycoon why he donated money for Jieng community living away at home in East Africa.He,after all, Makier Gai,he is not after all,a president by himself. He is a private citizen like anybody else in the country!. His donation he gave to Jieng community in Uganda,,it has nothing to do with corruption in the government to the president office.

in your charges you brought against the accused person Mr.Makier Gai,you do not have strong evidence to convince people on your alleged accused allegation case!There are many Jieng residents in Uganda, Tell me honestly speaking, which one among communities did received the money from accused person tycoon Mr.Makier Gai? Dinka Rumbek? Dinka Warrap? Dinka Yorol? Dinka Bor? Dinka Wau? Dinka Pigi? Danga Abilang? Be specifi please in your charges!

Thank you! Envious, jealousy,tribalism,They will never push South Sudan from going too far at this point!!!!!!!

Chief Abiko you still not understand me. I am not against money being donated. I am not accusing Makier Gai neither because he did a good thing by donating that money but I am against the one who stole it. It appears you have not read the article. There is a difference between Kuol and Makier Gai. I do not know what are thinking about. Can you please differentiate between Kuol and Makier Gai? I am not complaining because I am South Sudanese only but I am complaining because I am a member of Jieng Community and within Jieng Community some people are rotten and are thieves. So we must point out that fact. Can you please leave Makier out of this discourse unless you want to blame him for giving money to the thief; Kuol Gai. I am also complaining because of some Jieng Students missed examinations yet the money is there and the intention why Makier gave the money in question is to help the Jieng Community not individuals. Thanks. May you please reread the I article well, you seem to be full of prejudice to the extent of not getting the article well.

Chief Abiko, I am not surprised nor wondering with your response. I know where you come from and I am not going to pursue that line of argument. You said and I quote: “Thank you! Envious, jealousy,tribalism,They will never push South Sudan from going too far at this point!!!!!!!” you mean South Sudan can go ahead only when people steal community money with impunity leaving community impoverished. I am sorry for you I thought you are in USA but now you mind is Warrap or where u are but it is only body which is in USA. I am not going to reply to u anymore I thought you will learn or understand the article but you have missed the post and u are even becoming worse. Thanks for being biased.

Mr Daniel,
After a lengthy digestion of your reply to my comments,it has become imperative to conclude that you are a confused trouble maker and therefore there is a need to put u to the size that u deserve.
To begin from the begining,please retake in the following assertion:
“The purpose of this article is to take the bull by the horn by pointing corrupt practices in jieng community whether in East Africa or in south sudan as a way of fighting corruption”.
Good.But why haven’t u show your position about Makier Gai whom u say to be the one who donated the money in question?
If it’s true that Makier Gai donated 150,000US dollars,what job does he do in RSS to make that much?
If u couldn’t answer this question,then he is a thief.But in such context,who is more severe in thieving,Makier Gai who is the original thief or the leaders in your story who stole what the original thief had stollen and handed it over to their care?
Condemning the later and sparing the former makes of u a suspicious fellow.To be pricized sir,many observers me included are forced to have the impression of u as a fellow who is bitter becouse you are not the one who have stollen the money in question.Look at yourself in the mirror and see the rubbish u have brought to the forum.
What makes,”jieng”,the valueless objects to smear with shit when it isn’t due?!!!